BERKELEY -- A little more than a week before engineers are expected to disclose whether the Bay Bridge's new span can open as planned Labor Day weekend, Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday that he's taking the situation "very seriously."

"That thing is not going to open unless it's ready, and the engineers are telling me that they're doing the kind of work that will be needed for that," Brown said speaking to reporters before addressing UC Berkeley's new political science graduates.

Dozens of seismic safety rods have cracked during construction, prompting concern about the rest of the shock-absorber-like parts throughout the new span. Brown again Monday refused to predict when the bridge will open, saying he must wait until engineers present their report on May 29.

Brown said engineers are digging through old records from manufacturers, and must test the rods themselves. Asked whether he's personally involved in the oversight, he replied, "Well, it's a pretty big issue -- I drive across that bridge, too."

Brown's comments struck a far more serious tone than his four-letter response -- "(expletive) happens -- when he was asked weeks ago about the bridge's timetable. During his commencement speech, the governor avoided any of his trademark off-the-cuff headline grabbers. In fact, the governor -- famed for his rhetorical flourishes and sometimes biting repartee -- gave a rather earnest speech Monday morning to UC Berkeley's political science graduates, exhorting them to go forth into the world and use their talents to solve weighty problems such as climate change.

Brown did briefly wax nostalgic about his own graduation from UC Berkeley, 52 years ago in Memorial Stadium. His father, who was governor at the time, delivered an address.

"I don't remember what anyone said, but I do remember some unease as my father began his talk," Brown said Monday. "No one knew I was the son of the governor until I graduated, and, by the way, he wasn't too popular at that time."

Reminding the graduates that he had majored in Latin and Greek, and had taken only one political science course, Brown praised their choice of major as "more coherent than political practice."

In the face of worries such as Syria and Afghanistan, the aftermath of the Great Recession, unprecedented economic inequality and a tremendous mountain of student debt across the nation, "Washington is polarized and bogged down in empty political combat," Brown said.

Climate change is "even more threatening," he said. "Of course, the changes in our climate are not happening in political time. By Twitter standards, the pace is very slow but inexorable and, most troubling, soon to be irreversible.

"That's the world you face. But you have the skills and the knowledge and a sense of the good," Brown told the graduates, citing recent bipartisan collaboration on immigration reform as an example of democracy in action.

Another example, he said, was November's successful Proposition 30, Brown's ballot measure to raise sales taxes and income taxes on the rich to fund education. "For an important moment, democracy came alive," he said. "The power of ordinary people, joining together, made a profound difference."

Well, the power of people plus more than $69 million; Brown made no mention Monday of the sizable campaign spending on Proposition 30's behalf. The world's big issues won't be settled easily, Brown said, but people can collectively exercise power for the betterment of all. He urged the graduates to remember what they're capable of when the moment requires action.

"You have the intellect. Make sure you have the will," he said. "The grizzly bear is on our California flag. It portrays strength and determination. Take that with you. Go Bears!"